THE DOG BROKE THROUGH THE ICE IN FRONT OF ME. SHE WAS GONE IN an instant. One moment she was happily trotting along the frozen river in front of me, the next she crashed through, and the only thing I could see for a moment was the dark, jagged gash of water. Then she surfaced, her head slick with water, popping up like a cork and immediately pawing at the ice in panic. She couldn’t get a grip, and began to whine desperately. I skated toward her, and as I got close I heard the cracking under me. I stopped, the dog still scrabbling at the edge of the ice. Remembering that in these types of situations you were supposed to distribute your weight, I lay down on my belly and began inching forward. “C’mere girl! C’mon!” When I was within reach I heard a cracking sound, and the section of ice I was on dipped under my weight, water spilling toward my face.
People who live in the northern parts of the world—think Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska, and Canada—have been forced over hundreds of years to come up with creative ways to keep themselves busy over endlessly long winters of bitter cold. So they invented all sorts of entertainment: hockey, ice-fishing, electing Sarah Palin to office. But folks from the Nordic countries of Europe really shine in this regard. One of the popular winter pastimes for Bjorn and Astrid and Greta is Nordic skating. It’s simple enough. The practitioner puts on a pair of ice skates, grabs a pair of ski poles, finds a frozen river, and takes a long winding day trip across the frozen wasteland. Then goes home and has a nice hot, naked sauna and enjoys universal healthcare.
While I didn’t have a sauna, I was bored one winter in Vermont and gave it a shot. I lived with my family in a farmhouse at the foot of Snake Mountain. From our porch we could see the Lemon Fair valley, a patchwork quilt of fields and forest and the river itself. The Lemon Fair was a muddy, shallow, slow-moving river that drained the corn and hay fields that stretched for miles in every direction. Local history suggests that the river got the ironically cheerful name from early settlers who had tried to cross the river only to find their wagons buried up to the axle in the muddy clay that blanketed the valley. Apparently, one of those early settlers called crossing the river a “lamentable affair” and the name stuck, but was probably changed by early boosters of immigration desirous of driving up the tax base.
I put on my thrift store skates and grabbed a pair of cross-country ski poles and headed out, bringing along our golden retriever, Tasha. The day was bitterly cold—there’s always a span of a week or so in Vermont where the temperature drops to zero and below and stays there. But the sky was clear and sunny, and the ice windswept and smooth. So I skated off upriver, the dog happily running along the banks and river’s edge, exploring the wrack and ruin of past floods in the form of frozen logjams.
For some reason we think it’s a good idea to bring into our homes small carnivores with a penchant for rolling in dead carcasses, eating feces, then throwing up on the rug. These animals are commonly known as “pets.” People often get them as surrogate children or to accessorize outfits. It’s estimated that humans domesticated dogs as long as thirty thousand years ago. It’s no surprise; dogs are excellent companions who aren’t bothered in the least by flatulence or nose-picking, unlike other fussy individuals such as spouses and children. I’ve had a dog most of my life. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that my life would be drastically different—I would be drastically different—were it not for the dogs I’ve known. I don’t think I would’ve committed a large part of every day to getting outside, exploring the world around me, were it not for little four-legged beasties who need to poop and pee all the time. And once I’m out there, hiking along a trail with a dog whose tail wags happily up ahead, beckoning and urging me to come and explore with them, I am reminded not only of our inherent connection to all living creatures but also of the things that matter: friendship, fresh air, movement. Were it not for dogs, there’s a chance I’d have to be surgically removed from the couch as I tried to find the end of Netflix. Dogs remind us of who we really are and who we could be if we simply let go and learned to have a bit more fun once in a while. They keep us on our toes.
In fact, this reality was brought home to me last winter. My daughter, Vivien, moved back home after graduate school and brought with her Phoebe, a fifty-five-pound pit bull mix she’d adopted. Phoebe had the physique of Jackie Joyner-Kersee—all muscle and sinew and speed. Phoebe had recently had surgery on both knees but was healed up, so Vivien and I took her out on a hike in the woods and fields near our home, an area of hemlock and maple forests interspersed by cornfields, wetlands, and suburban parks. We brought along Ruggles, our other dog. Ruggles—or, if one is being formal, Mr. Jackson Cornelius Ruggles Esquire & Co—is a rescue who looks like the offspring of a hyena and a dingo. He’s a great off-leash trail dog, however, so he joyfully scampered along beside us as Viv and I crunched through the snow, Phoebe pulling on her leash and trying out her new knees.
“Should we try letting her off?” Vivien asked. We were far from any roads and houses, surrounded by acres and acres of woods and fields.
“Why not,” I said. Vivien reached down and with an audible click undid the leash from Phoebe’s collar.
I have never in my life seen a dog take off so fast. Like a sprinting puma, and without so much as a glance back, Phoebe shot off through the field. She reached the edge of the forest in mere seconds and disappeared into the trees.
Ruggles tore after her, trying as hard as he could to keep up. Vivien and I turned to look at each other, mouths hanging open, the realization slowly dawning on us that we now had a predicament on our hands. Moments after he disappeared into the trees, Ruggles’s head popped back out, looking at us, an expression of concern on his face that seemed to say, Well, aren’t you going after her?
I took off running. It’s important to note here that it was morning, and I had just thrown a big jacket and goofy, red snow pants over my pajamas. I was wearing large, cumbersome winter boots. Dressed in this ensemble, I took off after the dogs, jacket flapping, boots thumping. Uncaffeinated and barely awake, I sprinted for all I was worth after the dogs and into the trees.
It’s at moments such as this I like to imagine I can see the scene from a bird’s-eye view. Vivien, standing alone in the field, the now useless leash dangling from her hand; me, galumphing and wheezing after the dogs in my ridiculous winter getup; the dogs, running pellmell through the forest with tongues hanging out. I am an adult with a job and a mortgage, I thought as I heaved my recalcitrant body through the trees. I don’t need this
I caught up with them, eventually, as they’d found some interesting pee to sniff or dead things to roll in. But it was a great example of how dogs force you into an immediate and uncompromising engagement with the world. How your own selfish concerns about a promotion at work, the size and flubberiness of your love handles, or whether or not you drive a late-model sports car are superseded by the needs of a furry beast. They are four-legged harbingers of humility.
When Tasha went through the ice and I found myself in the draft of a Jack London story, I thought I might have lost her. I was worried that the current might be strong and drag her under the ice away from the hole she’d fallen through. I could just picture her sucked away by the dark waters, scratching away at the ice overhead. The ice was breaking in big, queen bed–sized pieces. The one I was on tilted toward the dog, and water poured over it, soaking my outstretched arms. Tasha still frenetically was trying to crawl up, but her paws couldn’t get a purchase on the ice, and she had no leverage with her back legs, which were madly paddling beneath the surface to keep her afloat. I inched forward, pushing down the slab of ice and inviting more water to slosh toward me. Tasha had stopped whining and was now solely concentrated on survival, her brain shutting off all unnecessary functions and putting all resources toward hauling herself out of the freezing river.
Inching forward, I finally was able to grab her collar and haul backward. There was a moment where I thought the ice would give and dump me in too, and wearing a few layers of winter clothes I knew that I’d be in trouble, dragged down by their weight. Also, while I had never tried to tread water wearing hockey skates, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a particularly efficient way to stay alive.
Inching backward in tiny increments, I was able to pull her front half out. Once she had more of her weight on the ice, Tasha was able to scramble up and out of the broken hole, now sloshing with chunks of ice that bobbed about. Staying on all fours, I scrabbled toward the bank behind the dog, who was making a beeline for solid ground. The adrenaline began to wear off, and I felt just how cold my arms and chest were, the icy water that had soaked through my clothes hitting me like an electric shock. I got to the bank and stood up, teetering on the blades of my skates as Tasha furiously shook herself nearby. I took stock of the situation. I was a few miles from home, on a subzero day, and I was pretty wet—my hands already felt completely numb. I couldn’t really walk anywhere, as I was wearing skates. Tasha was wet through and through, and the freezing air had already begun to suck our body heat away.
I took off my gloves and shoved them in a jacket pocket. Tucking my ski poles under my arm, I stuffed my frozen hands inside my jacket and buried them in my armpits. I began to slowly skate back the way I’d come, worrying that the ice would break under me any second. Tasha suspiciously eyed me from shore, but dutifully followed, keeping to the grassy frozen hummocks that lined the bank as we made our way back.
It is possible, I suppose, to have a lovely hungover Saturday morning where you stay in bed an extra hour instead of taking the dog out for spin. You can live a life where you don’t have to consider the needs of your canine friend, whose beseeching eyes remind you constantly that it’d probably be a good idea to head outside for some fetch. I think it’d be fine to come home to a nice quiet house at the end of a long day and not be greeted by joyous insistence, wagging tails, barks, and full bladders needing release.
But why would you want that?